As Peter Dobrin noted in the Inquirer just a few days before my visit to Curtain Call, the Kimmel Center's new café and cocktail lounge, "isn't quite what it should be." Indeed it isn't.
I actually liked the design of the area around the bar behind cashier's station in the front, enough so that I thought getting a coffee there would be really nice. There was plenty of time before the 3:00 concert start, and there was just one person ordering ahead of me in line. So I asked the cashier for a coffee with "room for cream." She filled a cup, and I looked for a carafe of half & half on the counter. There was only 1 carafe, marked "regular" (as opposed to organic?). I asked the cashier if they didn't have half & half. "I don't think so," she replied. It's the kind of response that might precede a quick check with the barista, and then reporting back to the customer - at the very least with an apology if somehow the unthinkable - a café without half & half?! - was in existence right at the corner of Broad and Spruce. But no, she just didn't think so, and was on to ringing up the next sale. Good heavens, what if I had asked for something as exotic as oat milk or soy? Perhaps then she would have actually known that they didn't have it. So I guess before you order your coffee, the onus is on you to determine whether they might have some of the more common products you might like to put into. And I don't really blame the cashier (although I do blame her for not leaving room enough for the 2% milk I had to use), it's probably a matter of training and supervision - although it's hard to imagine that you need much training to understand how to respond to a customer inquiry like mine. This unfortunate one-star scenario is brought to us by the oddly named *Rhubarb* Hospitality Collection by Oak View Group, which is a self-described "premier hospitality provider renowned for delivering exceptional dining experiences across iconic venues in London, New York, and Berlin." Too bad the exceptionalism doesn't extend to Philadelphia. "Isn't quite what it should be." Peter Dobrin, you got that right. read more